ALP 6.3%
Incumbent MP
Susan Templeman, since 2016.
Geography
Macquarie covers the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury council areas as well as the part of the City of Penrith west of the Nepean River, including the towns of Katoomba, Blaxland, Wentworth Falls, Lawson, Richmond, Windsor and Kurrajong.
Redistribution
Macquarie mostly maintained its existing boundaries, but expanded slightly to take in the small part of the City of Penrith west of the Nepean River, including Emu Plains, Emu Heights and Leonay. These changes cut the Labor margin from 7.8% to 6.3%.
History
Macquarie is a federation seat, and has always sat to the west of Sydney and covered the Blue Mountains, although its boundaries have shifted. It has tended to be a marginal seat, although in recent decades it has not always swung with the national trend.
The seat was first won by the Free Trade party in 1901, and they held it for two terms before Ernest Carr won it in 1906 for Labor. Carr held the seat until 1917, when he was defeated for reelection after leaving the ALP in late 1916 to join the Nationalist Party. The ALP held the seat again from 1917 until 1922, when the Nationalist Party won back the seat. Arthur Manning was reelected in 1925 against future Prime Minister Ben Chifley, who defeated Manning on a second attempt in 1928.
Chifley held the seat for two terms before losing to John Lawson of the United Australia Party in 1931. Lawson was reelected in 1934 and 1937 before Chifley defeated him in 1940. Chifley went on to serve as a senior Minister under John Curtin and became Prime Minister in 1945. He lost the Prime Ministership in 1949, then led his party in Opposition. He was reelected in Macquarie at the 1951 double dissolution before dying a few weeks later.
The seat was won in 1951 by Anthony Luchetti, a longstanding Labor activist in Macquarie. Luchetti had been Chifley’s campaign manager during his first stint in Macquarie in the 1920s, but stood as a Lang Labor candidate at the 1931 election. The split Labor vote saw the UAP win the seat in a slim margin. Luchetti held the seat from 1951 until his retirement in 1975.
The Liberal Party won the seat in 1975 in the person of Reg Gillard, who was defeated by the ALP’s Ross Free in 1980. The 1984 redistribution saw Free move to the new seat of Lindsay, and the Liberal Party’s Alasdair Webster won Macquarie.
Webster lost the seat in 1993 to Maggie Deahm of the ALP, who lost the seat herself in 1996 to Kerry Bartlett. Bartlett made the seat fairly safe over the next decade before the 2007 redistribution saw Bartlett defeated by the long-serving state MP and Minister Bob Debus. Debus went straight into Kevin Rudd’s ministry as Minister for Home Affairs. Debus resigned from the ministry in June 2009 in anticipation of his retirement from politics at the next election.
At the 2010 election the seat’s boundaries were shifted back to the boundaries in 2004. Louise Markus, who held Greenway in 2007 when it covered Hawkesbury council, chose to run for Macquarie instead, and won the seat with a 1.3% margin. Markus was re-elected in 2010 and 2013.
Markus lost in 2016 to Labor’s Susan Templeman. Templeman was re-elected in 2019 and 2022.
Assessment
Macquarie is much stronger for Labor now than it was in past decades, and Templeman is the favourite to win re-election.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Susan Templeman | Labor | 41,025 | 43.0 | +4.7 | 41.8 |
| Sarah Richards | Liberal | 32,980 | 34.6 | -10.3 | 35.9 |
| Tony Hickey | Greens | 9,115 | 9.5 | +0.4 | 9.5 |
| Tony Pettitt | One Nation | 4,955 | 5.2 | +5.2 | 5.2 |
| Nicole Evans | United Australia | 2,774 | 2.9 | -1.1 | 2.9 |
| Greg Keightley | Animal Justice | 2,013 | 2.1 | -1.6 | 1.9 |
| Michelle Palmer | Informed Medical Options | 1,318 | 1.4 | +1.4 | 1.5 |
| James Jackson | Liberal Democrats | 1,272 | 1.3 | +1.3 | 1.3 |
| Informal | 5,095 | 5.1 | +0.8 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Susan Templeman | Labor | 55,143 | 57.8 | +7.6 | 56.3 |
| Sarah Richards | Liberal | 40,309 | 42.2 | -7.6 | 43.7 |
Booths have been divided into three parts. The Macquarie electorate is clearly divided between the Hawkesbury and the Blue Mountains. There is also clear divisions between the upper and lower mountains.
Labor won a majority in two out of three areas, with 57.3% in the lower mountains and 74.2% in the upper mountains. The Liberal Party polled 54.1% in the Hawkesbury.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 5.1% in Hawkesbury to 17.8% in the upper mountains.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ALP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Hawkesbury | 5.1 | 45.9 | 22,678 | 21.7 |
| Lower Mountains | 11.5 | 57.3 | 16,793 | 16.1 |
| Upper Mountains | 17.8 | 74.2 | 10,554 | 10.1 |
| Pre-poll | 9.0 | 57.4 | 39,943 | 38.2 |
| Other votes | 9.3 | 55.5 | 14,589 | 14.0 |
Election results in Macquarie at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.
Exactly, Tommo. Four years ago it was thought that so long as the boundaries remained roughly as they were, Labor would always face a tough fight to hold this seat. The last two elections have quite defied those expectations. It would at this point take a very dramatic reversal to even bring Macquarie back to the point of Susan Templeman “only” winning on personal popularity and campaign strategy.
I noticed that there were solid primary vote swings to the Greens at most Blue Mountains booths, even double-digits in Lawson and Blackheath. I’m guessing lots of tree-changers and first-home buyers and white collar professionals (who WFH most days but commute to Sydney some days) moved in.
The Hawkesbury part saw swings to One Nation at the expense of the Liberals. I’m not sure what happened there. Strong One Nation campaigning?
@ Votante
I think Hawkesbury has a One Nation demographic a lot of self employed tradies and market gardens. it is a very conservative area.
My guess is that they couldn’t bring themselves to vote Libeal and switched to One Nation. There were also significant swings to the Greens.
Bligh Park is a bit different as it’s outer suburban rather than peri-urban or semi-rural. It had swings to Labor as part of the party’s success of winning the outer suburban working-class.
@Votante As far as I could tell, there was no campaigning by One Nation at all in Macquarie, strong or otherwise. There was no sign of them at Windsor Pre-poll either so I don’t think it was a localised Hawkesbury effort. Their candidate was based in the Blue Mountains so not a case of local popularity either. I think it’s best explained as a national or at least broad-based within the demographic shift.
If they do another redistribution im definitely gonna split this up the 50% excess from the north coast and Hunter seat can combine with hawkesbury and blue mountains can then push across the hawkesbury to take in parts of Penrith and all that excess in those seats (Chifley greenway Mitchell lindsay) and Pitt town, rich ond Windsor. Thoughts?
@John not sure what that would look like but I agree that this seat needs reworking.
Another idea is to push hawkesbury into the northern parts of Penrith and then the southern parts with blue mountains then rew9rk the Hunter regions excess with parts of calare and new England and the move territory between new England Parkes calare and Riverina. ???
Im thinking Lithgow, upper Hunter Muswellbrook, singleton Cessnock and Midwestern? This seat couldbe would be called Hunter.